


i'm hurting and you're my antidote

by outeredges



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, First Kiss, Identity Reveal, i tried writing angst at least, idk - Freeform, not much comfort but a litte, not really fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-08
Updated: 2018-06-08
Packaged: 2019-05-19 14:28:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14875506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/outeredges/pseuds/outeredges
Summary: Ladybug and Cat Noir have defeated Hawkmoth, and everything in Adrien's life comes crumbling down.





	i'm hurting and you're my antidote

**Author's Note:**

> so even though the angst is terribly written i still cried while writing this,, oops?

Cat Noir should be feeling happy right now, probably one of the happiest moments of his life. He and Ladybug just defeated Hawkmoth after years of battling his stupid akumas. Except he’s not happy, what should have been one of the best days of his life is the worst. Because Hawkmoth is _his father_ . His father, who he once knew to be so kind and full of joy, his father who had become aloof and cold in the years after his mother’s death. It was _his father_ who had a kwami, his father who created akumas and tried to destroy him on the near daily, because he had become so… fixated on trying to use his and Ladybug’s miraculouses to bring his mother back to life. Today is supposed to be one of the best days of his life, but it is his worst, because he and Ladybug defeated Hawkmoth, who had been so close to bringing back Adrien’s mother that he almost couldn’t bring himself to defeat him, and his dad was being brought to a high security prison.

  
He and Ladybug are alone in the tower where just hours earlier he saw his father appear as Hawkmoth melted away after Ladybug ripped his miraculous off. All of his muscles _ache_ from the long battle, and yet, somehow, he and Ladybug managed to win without using her Lucky Charm, or his Cataclysm. They have all the time in the world. At the same time, they don’t. They don’t because now that Hawkmoth is defeated Paris has no need for Ladybug and Cat Noir anymore, this is probably going to be one of the last times he’s going to see her, ever. And damn it, if that doesn’t make his colossally bad day a million times worse.

This is the last time he’s going to see the love of his life.

“Kitty,” she whispers, and she’s standing a few feet behind him as he stares out the open window panel, the one his dad must’ve used to send the akumas out of. The little white butterflies have long vanished from the tower. Her voice makes Cat Noir’s heart ache more than his muscles. He doesn’t know how he’s going to cope without her, she’s- she’s the love of his life, his best friend, his _rock_. She’s the one person she could turn to without having to worry about sharing too much (ironically), the one person he could be himself around without having to worry about facing the wrath of his father for being a disgrace to his family.

“Ha,” Cat Noir snorts, not even directed at her, “Disgrace to the family, fuck you, you’re the disgrace to the family.” he mutters it so low not even Ladybug can hear. Fuck his dad, fuck him to hell and back and then back to hell because he deserves to _rot_. Fuck his dad for leaving him alone after his mother died, fuck his dad for not letting him do anything even remotely fun, fuck his dad for not being there because he was too busy destroying Paris. Fuck him, fuck him, fuck him, fuck him. 

He doesn’t even realize he’s crying until Ladybug puts her hand on his shoulder and pulls him into a hug. With a sharp sob he buries his face into his chest and clutches on to her for dear life. He can’t lose her too, he can’t. It would break him, he’s sure of it.

“Shh, kitty, I’m right here,” she whispers softly, and no matter how much warmth the words bring him, he still feels cold, “You’re not alone, I’m not going anywhere, I promise.”

And Adrien’s sobs worsen because she can make all the promises in the world, but he knows Master Fu will want their miraculouses back, or forbid them from using unless absolutely necessary at the least.

She holds him, and doesn’t say a word besides the occasional murmur that not even his enhanced hearing can pick up. He doesn’t know how long she holds him for, could be hours, could be mere minutes, but he does know that her arms around him might be the only thing holding him together. He does know that he pulls away after a while to look at her, and he can see her face looks red and blotchy like she got done shedding a few tears herself.

“Ladybug,” he whispers, his voice hoarse, “I love you.”

She squeezes her eyes shut and a tear rolls down her cheek, Cat Noir wipes it away with the swipe of his thumb. “I’m so sorry,” she says, her voice cracks, “I love you too,” she looks up and shakes her head, “God, I love you _so much_ , leaving you, this, this is the hardest thing I’m ever going to have to do.”

A strangled cry leaves her throat, and Adrien feels his heart clench even further. “Then don’t leave,” he begs, “Please. Stay. I won’t tell anyone who you are, I swear on my life, I just, I can’t, I can’t lose anyone else.”

“Adrien,” she murmurs, leaning her forehead against his. Yeah, she knows, she found out when Hawkmoth’s transformation fell and Adrien called him dad. One of the most recognizable families in Paris, the world renowned designer and his son, were fighting on opposite sides of the same war. “You know I can’t.”

He wants to scream at her _Why not?_ He wants to throw things and yell and cry and because his whole world has collapsed and she can’t leave him, too. He doesn’t do any of those things. He just blinks back the tears.  
  
Their faces are so close he can count her eyelashes. “Can, can I kiss you?”

She nods minutely, and they both lean forward a miniscule amount to close the gap between them. The kiss is fleeting, like this, their final encounter, it’s full of love and longing and despair and Cat Noir hopes, he _hopes_ , that she will never pull away so she won’t ever have to leave him. The kiss feels like a goodbye, it _is_ a goodbye. It shouldn’t be, it should be a kiss to signify the start of the rest of his life. Today should’ve been perfect. Today is the day they defeated Hawkmoth, and they should’ve kissed right after, it was supposed to be a happy kiss, Cat Noir was supposed to pull her into his arms and she was supposed to drag his head down to kiss him in an almost triumphant fashion.

Ladybug is the one who pulls away. She pulls away completely, and Cat Noir can feel the cracks in him deepening as he threatens to collapse completely.  

“I’m so sorry,” she says, tears openly running down her cheeks, “Good-,” she falters, “Goodbye, kitty. I love you.”

He squeezes his eyes shut and puts his face in his hands; he isn’t sure he can survive through watching her walk out the door and out of his life.

When he opens his eyes, Ladybug is gone, and so is his heart.

 

;;

 

Master Fu doesn’t take Plagg. There’s a look of pity in the man’s eyes as he sees him for the first time since after Hawkmoth’s defeat. It makes Adrien angry. Everyone he’s met with since his dad got tossed into jail, every single one, looks at him with pity, and treats him like he’s about to break. They’re wrong, he isn’t about to break, he _is_ broken.

“You are one of the greats,” Master Fu tells him, “One of the best wielders of the black cat miraculous.”  
  
Adrien goes to pull his ring off, ready to give it to the Guardian. His heart feels heavy, but he isn’t really sure it’s stopped being heavy since Ladybug took off his dad’s miraculous.

“No,” Master Fu says, placing his hand over Adrien’s to stop him, “You can keep it. But-” he stops, “You should know that, that I took Ladybug’s miraculous from her.”

“What?” Adrien exclaims, “Why?”

If Ladybug isn’t keeping her miraculous, there’s no way Adrien is worthy to keep his. This is just Master Fu’s way of being like everyone else, treating him like he’s going to break. Stupid man, he should know that if we wanted to give Adrien a gift he should tell him Ladybug’s identity, or let her keep her miraculous so she won’t leave him.

“I do not trust her,” the Guardian sighs, “She is irrational after the state of things, I’m worried she is going to do something rash that will end up hurting someone or herself. 

 _Ladybug is being irrational?_ That sounds impossible, Ladybug is the most levelheaded person he kno- knew. Knew. He knew her, he doesn’t know her, not anymore. He feels tears prick at the corner of his eyes, no, he’s not going to cry in front of Master Fu. Why would Ladybug ever have reason to be irrational? He should be the one Master Fu is worrying over, it’s _his dad_ in jail, about to be put on trial.

“Oh,” he sighs, and Master Fu nods at him before standing up to leave.

“Yes, Adrien. I wish you good luck on the journey ahead of you,” Master Fu pauses at the door, “I’m very sorry. None of this would be happening if I did a better job of guarding the miraculouses.”

“It’s not your fault,” Adrien assures him, “It’s my dad’s.”

 

;;

 

Marinette had been reluctant when Master Fu asked for her miraculous back, and when she took her earrings off and Tikki disappeared had been one of the worst moments of her life. Not worse than walking away from Cat Noir, still bad though. Tikki had been a constant in her life for years now, one of her best friends. But she couldn’t blame Master Fu for asking for the miraculous back, she didn’t deserve to keep it. Not after what she almost did to Mr. Agreste. She just, she was so _angry_ at him for doing what he did to Paris, to Adrien. 

Adrien. Her heart _aches_ for him. She wants nothing more than to run up to him and shout “I’m Ladybug!”. She’s too much of a coward to do so. It’s hard enough to have to face him during school, hard enough having to see how worn and tired he looks knowing that she’s the reason he looks that way. A small part of her almost regrets taking down Hawkmoth, almost. She still thinks he deserves to rot in hell forever for what he did. 

She misses Cat Noir so much. She misses the flirting and the teasing and the smiles and the games of tag they would play across the rooftops and his puns, but most of all she misses _him_. She misses the way he would light up, she misses his comfort. She misses him being happy. 

“Are you okay?” Alya asks her about two weeks after her and Cat Noir took down Hawkmoth. Gabriel’s trial is coming up, Ladybug was asked to testify, and Marinette hasn’t seen her best friend in two weeks. Well, she’s seen Adrien, except she can’t meet his eyes and he doesn’t know that she’s Ladybug so she can’t exactly start talking to him like she used to. Who would’ve thought the days where they were taking akumas would be the good ol days? That those would be the memories she fell back on in times of comfort. 

“Yeah,” Marinette lies, “Just tired.”

Alya has a skeptical look as she studies Marinette’s face looking for any hint that she’s lying. Something in her expression must convince Alya to drop it because she doesn’t press the issue further.

  
“I’m going over to Nino’s after school today,” she tells Marinette, and Marinette shoots her a questioning look in response, “You should come, you can hang out with Adrien.”

Nino’s family volunteered to foster Adrien for the time being, except everyone knows he isn’t going anywhere. Adrien will be staying with them until he moves out because it’s impossible his dad get’s anything less than a life sentence in jail.

“No!” Marinette exclaims quickly, and the people in the tables surrounding them turn to look at her, “I mean,” she lowers her voice, “I can’t see Adrien.”

“Why?”  
  
“Because,” is the only explanation Marinette offers.

“I’m sure he could use some comfort,” Alya tries.

“Not from me,” Marinette says firmly, shaking her head, “So, Alya, just drop it.”

 

;;

 

Sneaking out of Nino’s house is somehow harder than it had been sneaking out of his own. Even with his overbearing bodyguard. But he manages, every night.

Every night he transforms into Cat Noir, just so he can escape. So he can run without any attachments, even if it doesn’t feel like it used to. Nothing feels like it used to. The closer and closer it gets to his father’s trial, the more numb he feels. His anger and sadness and frustration is slowly melting into an empty void that is somehow a million times worse. Because with his anger and sadness and frustration he feels his love fading. He can’t remember what his lady’s lips felt like as they slotted together with his, he can’t remember the butterflies in his stomach when she smiled at him and the way his heart swelled when she told him that she loved him for the first time. He’s slowly not remembering any of it, and he dreads the day he can’t feel any of it at all because then his last remnants of his Ladybug will finally have slipped away.

Every night he winds up on the Eiffel Tower, on the beam where he and Ladybug would race to after patrols. Every night he sits up there and closes his eyes, because if he does he can almost pretend his lady is still with him. Almost. Sometimes, he just reminisces, replaying fond memories with Ladybug in his head. Other times he gets angry. He punches and kicks and whacks the tower.  
  
The first night he goes to the beam, he brings a ribbon and a rose, very carefully, he wraps the red ribbon around the beam and tucks the rose into it.

  
Every night afterwards he brings a rose and tucks it into the ribbon.

 

;;

 

Everyone thinks Ladybug is dead when Cat Noir starts putting the roses in the Eiffel Tower, except he never came out and made a statement about it, so the mayor put out a formal request on the news asking Ladybug and Cat Noir to testify against Gabriel Agreste anyway. 

It’s weird, for Marinette, to see her friends and family and fellow classmates mourning Ladybug’s death. It’s even weirder to see the way Adrien is reacting. He knows she’s not dead, he knows that. He reacts violently still. He still mourns her death. He wears the Ladybug pins the school hands out for her memorial, but everyday. She saw Nino holding him while he cried, and she didn’t hear anything after the words _I miss her_ because she had run away. If she had stayed any longer she would’ve shoved Nino out of the way, held him, stroking his hair the way he likes, and she would’ve confessed right there. Her heart breaks for him every day.

It hurts. It hurts worse than any injury she sustained as Ladybug combined and amplified times a million.

 

;;

 

It’s the day of his father’s trial, and Adrien is staring at himself in the courthouse bathroom mirror. His father’s lawyer told him to dress nice, to look presentable, and Nino had assured him that he looks fine. He doesn’t feel fine. He hasn’t felt fine since he and Ladybug stormed Hawkmoth’s fortress. He can’t do this. He can’t do this. He’s already testified once, and now he has to do it again, again but under a different name. He can’t do it.  

With a deep breath, he exits and prepares to enter courtroom.

 

;;

 

Marinette convinced Master Fu to give her the miraculous back long enough to testify against Gabriel.

She almosts wished she didn’t. Because, as she’s sitting in the courtroom, eyes trained on her as she tells her account of what happened, Gabriel’s lawyer drilling her with questions, she feels like she’s going to puke. But she chokes it down; he deserves to rot in jail for the rest of his life.

And then the courtroom door opens, and Cat Noir walks in.  

Marinette can’t hold back the puke any longer, and she vaults over the small barrier separating her from the lawyer and runs to the nearest trash can, emptying her guts into it. She hears gasps and sounds of people going “ew” from the crowd, but she can’t bring herself to care. It’s Cat Noir, he’s here, and it’s her first time seeing him in person since she walked out on him in the tower. She’s seen Adrien, but it feels different. Cat Noir is her best friend, the boy she loves, she had simply loved the _idea_ of Adrien, and seeing Cat Noir in the courtroom makes her stomach churn with regret. Hence, the vomiting.

Cat Noir is frozen in place. He can’t move, he can’t think, he can’t _breathe._ Ladybug, his lady, his best friend, the love of his life, is _right there_. She must’ve convinced Master Fu to give back her miraculous, if only for the day. Everything that had been numbing over the weeks, the anger, the frustration, the sadness, his love, all of it swooped in and hit him in the chest full force. It made him take in a deep breath, wheezing a little bit as he did. When he released it, he felt infinitely more relaxed, and he couldn’t help the smile he reserved especially for Ladybug dance onto his lips. And then she puked. She ran to the nearest garbage can and puked, and he can’t hold it in. He starts laughing. It makes him think of the time she puked because they were playing on the park like a bunch of kids and he spun her too fast on the merry-go-round at her insistence. She had claimed she could handle it, but then she stumbled off it and puked in a garbage can. That was a fun night.  

“Stop it, kitty!” Marinette can’t help but laugh too, that happens when she’s around Cat Noir. Whenever he laughs or smiles she can’t help but to laugh or smile. She’s acutely aware of everyone in the courtroom watching them, but she doesn’t care. Until she remembers where they are, and what’s happening. It seems he remembers at the same time because they both stop laughing at the same time and Marinette quickly looks away from him.

“I’m so sorry!” she says quickly before rushing out of the courtroom via window.

 

;;

 

Cat Noir barely made it through his testimony without breaking down into tears. She had been _so close_. He would’ve had to cross less than twenty feet and she could’ve been in his arms again. He feels his heart break all over again.

 

;;

 

When he leaves the courtroom as Cat Noir, he doesn’t come back as Adrien, even when his father’s lawyer told him he should be in the courtroom supporting his father. It made him want to yell and kick his father’s lawyer in the balls since he couldn’t do it to his dad. Nothing could ever make him want to support his father, not after what he did. Adrien only testified on his behalf because his father’s lawyer basically threatened to ruin his life if he didn’t, and he knew his testimony as Cat Noir would be a thousand times more important.

Cat Noir doesn’t know where he’s running, but like every other time he’s set out as Cat Noir, he winds up on the beam. He prays to whatever entity is out there that his father gets maximum punishment, he prays that Ladybug has her miraculous back so that he can get his best friend back, and he prays for everything to maybe be okay one day in the future. The older he gets, the further away happiness seems. When he was little, his mom described what it was like to get older, to find happiness as he found his place in the world and met the love of his life. But then she died and everything seemed dim, until he did meet Ladybug, the love of his life, and everything seemed brighter.

“Cat Noir,” someone says, and they step towards him. He had been so deep in thought that he hadn’t even noticed someone is on the beam next to him.

He quickly whirls around, and their voice sounds like Ladybug so he gets his hopes up. His face falls when it isn’t Ladybug, and when he remembers that he’s several hundred feet off the ground he almost falls off the tower. Because his classmate, his friend, Marinette Dupain-Cheng is standing across from him and she looks like she’s been crying.

“Marinette, how the fuck did you get up here?” he asks, and his feelings get clouded by the his huge mood of _what the fuck????_  

“I climbed,” she says simply, and without a warning she embraces him in a hug. “I’m so sorry. I’m so so sorry, I never wanted to leave you.”

And he’s confused but he can’t help but sink into her touch. He almost cries when he realizes that this is the first time he’s been hugged since Ladybug left him.

“I’m sorry,” she repeats, murmuring it in his shoulder as she strokes his hair, “I love you so much, I’m so sorry.”

He freezes when she says that she loves him. “What?” He asks, pulling away. He’s met Marinette as Cat Noir only a few times before, there’s not way she could have fallen in love with him in that time, especially when the first time he acted like a flirty jerk. 

“I should’ve told you so long ago,” she says cryptically, “Leaving you was the hardest thing I ever had to do, kitty. I love you so much. I broke my promise and I’m sorry, but I’m here now.”

Ladybug. It’s Ladybug. Marinette Dupain-Cheng, the girl who he’s sat in front of for _years_ , a good friend of his, is Ladybug. Stammering, stuttering Marinette is Ladybug. She’s his best friend, the love of his life.  
  
“I don’t care,” he says, “You’re here now and it’s all that matters.”

“Can I kiss you?” she asks, pulling back from the hug.  

“If I ever answer no to that question it’s not me,” he smiles in response, and she giggles in response, pulling him down by the collar of his suit.

And unlike last time, this kiss is the start of something.

  


**Author's Note:**

> haha so i'm ass at writing angst and feelings and stuff, and I'm still getting the hang out writing miraculous fic so I don't have their characterizations down yet either so this is just a piece of garbage. Unedited, all mistakes are my own, and feel free to point out any typos in the comments.
> 
> Also, sorry for that hella weak ending, I suck at ending things


End file.
